Last night my friend Oliver was in town on business and invited me to join him in a rare opportunity: we met Al Gore! A hedge fund called Generation which Al is on the board for (?) was having a small party at One Bryant Park– the Bank of America Tower (a brand new skyscraper and incredibly green building with unbeleivable views of the city– see below) and Al was the guest of honor.
We got free signed copies of Our Choice and heard Al Gore speak to this room of no doubt very rich men about the issue he’s most passionate about: climate change. What was particularly neat was that we were hearing him speak here in NYC while in Copenhagen the worlds leaders are gathering to make… or NOT make progress together in addressing our challenges in this area. He didn’t seem hopeful that this conference would yield the results we need… but stated his faith that we can still prevent environmental catastrophe. I sure hope so.
By the way, there were so few women in this room it was a little eerie. And yes, I was pretty much the only person who took pictures. No flash of course… It was a highly sophisticated affair.
We did get our opportunity to shake his hand and talk for a few minutes…
After getting Oliver’s picture with him and listening to them converse about sustainable investments for a bit I asked him politely if he’s considered taking a bolder stance on the food system and calling for a boycott of the industrial farming system, which as he is well aware is a far greater source of environmental damage: methane from manur (20x worse than Co2), pollution and the giant amounts of of all varieties of resource-wasting than all the transportation/lightbulbs combined… He said that he had done so in this book and flipped to a few pages to show me. I had just seen him eat several bites of meat and I know this man is not a vegetarian..I mean, this is the meat platter at the party…
I asked him about this issue and he assured me that if I read the new book and still didn’t think he’d addressed it then I should let him know (easier said than done, Al!). I told him I was thrilled to hear that and that I looked forward to reading the book. Frankly I am not sure that a chapter in a book which will most likely only be read by the people who are already on board is making much use of his role as a national figure of leadership in the fight to save the planet from environmental catastrophe– which is the role he wants, no? I guess what I really he he would do is to go on TV and call on Americans to stop eating industrially produced meat and start supporting their local and organic farms… Or he could make a sequel documentary- with the same kind of vigor that he addressed carbon emissions from cars and electricity use in the home. It’s clear that the plethora of books written by random vegetarians (try Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book) are not going to reach the larger public. Even that movie Food, Inc., –which was a pretty good attempt at reaching a wider audience– let’s face it, was probably not seen by anyone who wasn’t already very interested in the issues. We need more mainstream media coverage of the facts, which are outrageous. Al Gore has the credibility and position to get the job done– and if most people actually understood how harmful to the environment and wasteful of resources the industrial meat farms are… one must hope they’d be willing to embrace a boycott. Which is essentially what being vegetarian is for those of us who reject animal products out of environmental concern… a refusal to participate in supporting an industry one believes ought to change its practices in order to earn your business.
Last night I took my 5d Mark II for a spin with video… I knew I’d be able to shoot this Sonic Youth show really well with the excellent low light capabilities of this camera’s sensor and wanted to practice my video recording technique here too… then this morning I realize I had the sound turned off (had been trying to save memory when shooting video previously), so my video is not worth sharing actually, though i think the footage looks amazing. i’m a little upset about this actually but let’s not talk about it further. There will be other shows.
The good news: A photo of mine was used by the Gothamist writer who was covering this show.
This weekend I shot bridal fashions in the studio with a great team– we were creating a lookbook for the custom wedding gown designer Courtney Brooke Yates. To fill out the shoot we brought in Holly Slayton to match her gorgeous birdcage veils and cocktail pieces with the gowns Courtney has created. Deepa Das (MUA) and Oryana Quintero filled out my team. We shot a number of gowns and lots of new pieces from Holly– it was a long day but lots of fun. Check out some of my favorites, rendered here with some of my stylistic processing (don’t worry, Courtney, your disc will have everything in straight color to show the exact fabric colors, i just couldn’t resist playing).
Fall is a great time to do family portraits– many people like to include them in an annual holiday card of course… As a professional photographer I offer these services and often shoot families in the park or at their home– but RARELY do i get to do something as hilarious and fun as this conceptual shoot I did this past weekend. Addie wanted a family portrait shoot that would be reminiscent of those Sears-style portrait sessions, but to play up the kitsch factor with a bunch of 80’s Christmas sweaters and deck everyone out to the hilt in holiday accessories, poodles included! This concept was a lot of fun to execute and the family came prepared and enthusiastic… I love the shots below and I had fun playing with the tonalities and contrast to re-create a 1960’s postcard look for a few of them– borders and all!
Merry Christmas everyone… if you have an idea for a family portrait (or a couple portrait) for your holiday cards or would like to do something like this with me please call to book a session soon, time is running out to order your cards before the holiday!
At about 3 months old Anna has been growing a lot since we last saw her. She’s filled out and has tons of personality– and the cutest yawns! I enjoyed shooting this new family on saturday afternoon in my studio, my favorites are below…
Rachel and Phil tied were married on October 18th, 2009 under a beautiful handpainted hupa at the Tribeca Grill in Manhattan. Rachel’s dress was simply gorgeous, and I love how her veil looked in the pictures during the ceremony (see below). The afternoon was filled with emotional moments. I was so pleased to be there shooting this wedding– I was very impressed with this wedding. You could sense that everything was selected (menu, dj, attire, flowers, every last detail) to complement both the couple and the venue in spirit and atmosphere… a task which is not always so easily accomplished! I was very happy to meet their DJ, Colleen-- as I will certainly be recommending her to any couples that are looking for hip DJ (with a great voice too) that can get multiple generations out on the floor without going to the cliched wedding standards we hear so very often. But enough about the DJ! Congratulations, Rachel and Phil!!! And best of luck with the marathon this weekend!
Phil’s grandmother had so much fun– she danced throughout the night and the smile on her face here is just radiant, I love this shot.
This was shot on a tripod with my fisheye lens… long exposure to capture the motion of all the dancing going on…
They had these adorable cupcakes with flowers that matched the floral arrangements… oh, and THIS amazing looking chocolate desert below! HOW TO CHOOSE?!
These two were made for eachother… they have so much fun together on and off the dance floor… did i mention they’re about to run a marathon together? Like, THIS WEEKEND! that’s right, two weeks after their wedding. pretty amazing.
I loved this moment… it was a spontaneous group hug around the bride on the dance floor… not sure how the huggers all knew eachother (college? camp? high school?) but they clearly go way back. It was super sweet.
Hello all, I’ve just gotten back to my desk after 3 jam-packed days at the PhotoPlus Expo (a photographers conference and trade show that I look forward to every year here at the Javitz center). I went to a slew of very interesting seminars and rubbed shoulders (so to speak) with some of the industry’s most talented and forward-thinking photographers (both wedding and portrait professionals alongside commercial photographers, fine artists and photojournalists), and of course I got to scout around on the trade show floor for the latest and greatest products to offer my clients… There’s nothing like being able to inspect an album company’s sample book styles before investing in them for my clients.
This year showed a marked improvement in the offerings available– I must say I absolutely fell in love with the styles offered by Couture Book– which is a brand new company offering absolutely gorgeous custom HAND BOUND art albums in a book-page style- up to 100 pages (50 spreads) is the minimum order per book so they look nice and thick and are FULL of images– BUT WITH FINE ART PAPERS and hand-torn edges available! Some of their book styles have these amazing embossed borders on each page around the images… AND You can ADD PRINTED VELLUM LEAVES! I’m sorry if I sound dramatic, but these are features I think are long overdue in the wedding album category… Flush mount albums can be quite stunning and are an excellent way of presenting and preserving your most treasured images from a wedding in storybook form… but these albums come with up to 100 pages AS A STANDARD! Yes, the pages are paper– bendable paper and not board-like leaves as with a Flush Mount. But in terms of the quality and style of presentation, these books have a HUGE artistic edge over anything else I’ve seen offered to photographers, and beleive me, i’ve had my eye on the options for a number of years now… I have an entire filing cabinet drawer full of the catalogs and ordering and design protocol information for basically every album and book-maker company in existence that will take orders from the U.S.
Being an experienced artist-book maker myself in my fine art practice (hand binding books from home-made prints and materials) I know good craftmanship when I see it, and trust me, this stuff is what you want. Worth every penny. I can’t wait to have some sample albums made so I can share these with clients. Until then check out their website. I must admit I find the ‘high fashion’ vibe of the website a little unnecessary and perhaps distracting– the books could sell themselves I think, and frankly i want to see more close-up book details and less models holding books, but I did really appreciate the “making of” aspect of their opening video– you should check it out (click here).
Also I decided to invest in a sample set of metal-mural prints for my studio– these are a really cool new way of displaying images that is not that much more expensive than canvas wall prints or framed photographs– your image can be divided up into a grid and hung as a set of metal tiles that are attached with a series of rings. Sounds weird at first but given the modern decor of many NYC apartments this style can be just the thing, and it’s certainly quite the conversation piece. I can also order these with different square images in each of the plates– like 4 images of a baby’s facial expressions in a square (can’t wait to order this!) and you can pretty much order any number of plates in any configuration, and the hanging hardware is included. I was thinking if you had a big bathroom or kitchen area that frequently gets steamy and you were nervous about hanging a canvas or any other fine art you could easily hang these in such a spot without worrying about water damage at all!
I met Melissa about a year and a half ago when my studio building was having ‘open studios’… she is an artist and at that time was renting a space in my building. Cut to a year later and Melissa is engaged to the wonderful fellow you see below! They’ll be tying the knot this March in New Orleans, a bit out of my geographical range (though if you want to hire me for an out of town wedding I *will gladly* do it, but you do have to figure in the travel and accomodations for me + my assistant into your budget), but hired me to do some engagement portraits for them. I was so excited when Melissa mentioned the amazing new High Line Park as a possible location– this park is so cool and I hadn’t gotten to do any shoots there yet since it opened. Of course, our scheduled timeslot ended up being incredibly windy and I had no idea how exceedingly popular and crowded this very narrow park is– it’s not as flexible for shooting as Central Park (and may be one of the toughest places I’ve shot, rivalling Times Square!)… but we made out all right and I got some really great shots of them both on the Highline and down at streetlevel in the surrounding neighborhood when it got too cold and windy to bear.
